Big earnings on Friday: J.C. Penney, Nutrisystem

Other stocks to watch: Strayer, Covidien, Energizer, Span-America

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Shares of J.C. Penney Co. fell Friday, retreating as third-quarter financial results showed sizable drops in total and comparable-store sales as well as a weaker gross margin.

J.C. Penney
JCP, -0.24%
reported a net loss of $123 million or 56 cents a share, for the quarter ended Oct. 27, as the company incurred $34 million, or 10 cents a share, in restructuring and management transition charges. On an adjusted basis, the results showed the retailer with a loss of $203 million, or 93 cents a share. The red ink was far more than analysts had expected. Quarterly sales totaled $2.93 billion, down from the prior year’s $3.99 billion, as comp-store sales fell 26.1%. Read: J.C. Penney’s Q3 loss narrows

Private-equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC
APO, -0.48%
swung to a third-quarter profit of $82.8 million, or 55 cents a share, from a year-earlier loss of $466.9 million, or $3.86 a share. Total economic net income after taxes came to 98 cents a share, improving from the prior year’s loss of $2.89 a share, according to Apollo Global’s results. Assets under management reached $110 billion at the end of the third quarter. Read: Apollo Global swings to profit.

Warner Chilcott PLC
US:WCRX
revised higher its full-year forecast as the company reported a higher net profit but lower revenue for the third quarter. The Dublin-based specialty pharmaceutical company now sees cash net income of $3.75 to $3.85 a share on an adjusted basis for 2012, up from $3.55 to $3.65 a share previously. Cash net income for the latest quarter came to 99 cents a share, the company said, with net income of $113 million, or 45 cents a share, up from $33 million, or 13 cents, earned in the year-earlier period. The consensus of analysts who follow Warner Chilcott had been for earnings of 78 cents a share. Quarterly revenue fell 7% to $606 million. Read: Warner Chilcott profit triples on fewer charges.

Ameren Corp.
AEE, +3.29%
reported third-quarter net income of $374 million, or $1.54 a share, up from $285 million, or $1.18 a share, earned in the year-earlier period. On an adjusted basis, earnings would have been $323 million, or $1.33 a share, down from $381 million, or $1.57 a share, in the 2011 quarter, as profit declined in all three of St. Louis-based Ameren’s business segments. Analysts, on average, had been looking for the power-generation company to post quarterly earnings of $1.41 a share. Quarterly revenue fell to $2 billion from the prior year’s $2.27 billion, reflecting a lower contribution from electricity operations. And Ameren’s management forecast adjusted earnings for 2012 in a range of $2.35 to $2.45 a share, updating its prior estimated range of $2.25 to $2.55 a share.

More stocks to watch

Also making headlines ahead of Friday’s bell, Energizer Holdings Inc.
ENR, -1.13%
said it will undertake a broad-based restructuring — including closing facilities that manufacture batteries in Maryville, Mo., and St. Albans, Vt. — intended to realize gross annualized cost savings of about $200 million before taxes. The restructuring will cost some 1,500 workers their jobs globally as St. Louis-based Energizer moves to reduce its workforce by more than 10%. Word of the restructuring came as Energizer reported results for the fourth quarter ended Sept. 30 and released its financial forecast for fiscal 2013 late Thursday.

The board of Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.
TMO, +0.29%
authorized the repurchase of an additional $1 billion in common stock, effective in 2013. Stock may be bought back in the open market or via negotiated transactions, according to the Waltham, Mass.-based company, which as of Oct. 1 had $350 million remaining under a repurchase authorization scheduled to expire Dec. 31. In addition, Thermo Fisher Scientific said the board declared a 15% increase in the company’s quarterly dividend, to 15 cents a share, payable Jan. 15 to stockholders of record as of Dec. 17.

And the board of Span-America Medical Systems Inc.
SPAN, +0.74%
declared a special dividend of $1 a share. The cash dividend will coincide with the company’s regular quarterly dividend of 12.5 cents a share: Both are payable Dec. 4 to holders of record as of Nov. 21.

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